Dan Pink and economics

I've made note of this video before in another blog, but not here.   The voice you hear is Dan Pink.   He's describing a peculiar thing that is contrary to what should happen - according to economists.  Their theory is that the bigger the incentive the better the work.   (Obviously they haven't looked at some of these people who've been grossly overpaid, given even grosser bonuses, and still done a poor job.   The CEO of BP is a prime example: he's about to walk out of his job with a $17m severance.)   However, the reality is that people will work for purpose more than payment because purpose is far more satisfying.   Hence the reasoning behind Linux, or Wikipedia and many other examples.

The video's quite long, but it's superbly done.  An artist draws what Pink says throughout: not only his words, but also pictures and often additional comments visually or verbally.   Quite apart from its content, it's just great to watch.



I'm told this has something do with what's known as 'swarms' - not entirely sure at this point what that refers to.